Melbourne:
The Maria Palm. — Mr. John Forrest, the renowned explorer, while recently engaged in triangulations through the country inland of Nichol Bay,1 secured at my request the seeds of a Palm, which prove to be those of a Livistona and identical with L. Mariae of the Macdonnell Ranges in Central Australia. This noble Palm was dedicated to H.R.H. the Duchess of Edinburgh, and we shall soon be able to place it along with L. australe and the Alexandra Palm in European conservatories. It attains a height of 60 feet, the leaves being as much as 6 feet long. It is remarkable that no Fan-Palms are known from the north coast of Australia, all being confined to the eastern coast regions of this continent, except the Maria Palm, which seems quite restricted to a solitary locality in Central and in West Australia. The Palm in question is fully described in the last (eighty-ninth) number of my Fragmenta, wherein also Ptychosperma Normanbyana is described,2 the examination of its flowers showing it to belong to this genus, and not to Areca, as was supposed when the fruit only was known. It is the same as the Saguerus australasicus of Wendland and Drude.
F. von Müeller.
Livistona australe
Livistona Mariae
Ptychosperma Normanbyana
Saguerus australasicus
Please cite as “FVM-79-01-00e,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on